The present disclosure relates to temperature controlled merchandizing units. More particularly, it relates to a portable, cooled and/or heated merchandizing unit incorporating thermoelectric devices.
Grocers and other retail sellers of packaged, consumable items often desire the ability to present such products to potential consumers in a heated or cooled form. In fact, with perishable products, maintaining the items in a cooled environment can be a necessity.
Conventionally, large refrigeration/freezer units are employed at the point of sale to maintain and display cooled/frozen products to consumers. Convection-type or radiant-type ovens are also common for presenting warmed products. While viable, these and other temperature control appliances are essentially immovable once installed, expensive to manufacture/operate, or both. For example, a compressed Freon refrigeration unit can maintain a large number of products at a desired temperature; however, the refrigeration unit is not easily moved to different, desired locations within a retailer's place of business. With many product promotions, short-term presentation of cooled/heated products at different or more prominent store locations is desired; unfortunately, typical in-store refrigerators or ovens do not provide the flexibility required by such promotions.
More recently, cooling systems have been suggested that utilize thermoelectric devices. Thermoelectric devices operate on a direct current (DC) voltage system, can be employed to maintain a desired temperature in refrigerators and portable coolers, and provide various advantages over vapor pressure-type refrigerators. One example of a cooled container employing a thermoelectric device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,193 entitled “Temperature Controlled Picnic Box.” The temperature controlled picnic box is described as having a housing with insulated walls forming a food compartment, an open top, and a lid for enclosing the food compartment. A thermoelectric device for cooling the picnic box is connected to the lid by fasteners. The thermoelectric device is limited in its capacity to cool the picnic box, and the enclosed food compartment is ill-suited for temporary retail store cooling displays.
While thermoelectric cooling appears promising for merchandizing applications, other factors associated with large scale production of such devices remains unaddressed. Different retail sellers will desire product containers of differing sizes and/or shapes (e.g., ranging from large, coffin-style freezers to small, shelf-sized units). It is economically impractical for a manufacturer to make and hold in inventory thermoelectric merchandizing units in accordance with each and every possible size/shape desired by multiple end users. Similarly, manufacturers cannot, on a cost-effective basis, readily design and create a newly-styled thermoelectric merchandizing unit from scratch in response to every unique customer request, especially where certification of the electrical components (e.g., UL certification) is needed. Further, certain retailers require cooling-type applications, others require heating-type applications, and yet others desire both. Existing, thermoelectric-based devices do not appear to contemplate meeting all such applications with a single design.
In light of the above, a need exists for a portable, temperature controlled merchandizing unit capable of satisfying the needs of diverse end users.